Comment on La Sierra and Battle Creek College by Sean Pitman.
Dealing with the situation at La Sierra both kindly and firmly gives us much needed practice for when we have to deal with the problem in less friendly venues. I view this as a drill for our larger work. And while here we may be able to use a shortcut (“You got outvoted; you will just have to quitâ€), that will not work in the larger world. Even here we should be, and be seen as, winning on the merits of the case, not just the power aspects.
I’d love the Church to be able to convince the entire world based on the overwhelmingly obvious merits of the Gospel. The problem, as you well know, is that convincing a person against his/her will is essentially impossible. This debate isn’t simply about having enough information to convince the candid mind. There are differences in motivations here as well as differences in background, education and mental abilities that come into play. Different people are on many different points in the path toward recognizing and accepting the “present truth” as the Church sees it. Not all, therefore, are qualified to be recognized as paid representatives of the Church before either pulpit or classroom.
The “education” of Church representatives should be done before they are hired by the Church, not after (at least not after given clear evidence of determined resistance against careful efforts to change the course of those who wish to fundamentally oppose the Church on the Church’s dime).
As a matter of fact, if we try to prematurely win on the power aspects, we may wind up losing more than we bargained for. These ideas have their hard-core supporters, but there are also many who have not thought it through who are sympathizers. These people can be swayed by arguments, about truth, and especially about fairness (like substantiated charges that the other side systematically excludes any mention of the evidence behind our positions), but if we make power plays without appropriate intellectual support, they will turn against us and the loss to the church will be far greater than it needed to be. Trial first, verdict afterwards.
I agree with the concept of trial first, verdict later. But there must be a trial and a verdict. Simply ignoring this situation like it isn’t really a huge problem for the Church will end up causing far more harm that meeting this problem head-on right now.
I know that for you the evidence is fairly obvious. It is for me also, although it takes reweighing the evidence without any thumbs on the scale. But the church at large knows very little about the evidence, and there needs to be some educating before the the church is prepared to make the correct verdict.
It is impossible to get everyone to understand all of the subtleties of the relevant evidence. This is the reason why the vast majority of mainstream scientists do not subscribe to the SDA position on origins – not even close. The Church simply cannot afford to sit around and do nothing until it convinces everyone of the validity of its own position on origins. That’s simply not going to happen. It isn’t realistic.
That is why fairness is so important. The rest of the church still does not fully realize that the strategy in the capstone classes has been to silence all positive evidence for short age, or even ID (!), and take nearly the most extreme position in favor of both long ages and unguided evolution and against the church’s stated position. That can be attacked on fairness grounds. Then once the discussion gets going we can win others to our position, which in the end is vital. Once that is done, the situation will resolve itself. In the meantime, at least people who are considering college (or paying for college) will at least know what the score is.
I think everyone who is actually interested in this discussion knows the truth as to what most LSU science professors have really been promoting in their classrooms. Is more transparency needed? Absolutely! But, LSU is doing the very best they can to cover up the truth in this regard. This effort has been ongoing for decades. It is time that the Church step in and definitively address this problem – as Mrs. White did in her day regarding a similar situation at Battle Creek. As part of the Church’s address of this problem it most certainly needs to cite the relevant evidence, as you did in your discussion and as has been done on this website over the past year and a half, as a reason for its action which can be easily validated by all.
Finally, we need to be careful not to paint with too wide a brush. According to conservative student testimony, there is one biology faculty member who is supportive of short age. Perhaps as a minimum, Dr. Perumel could be put in partial (or complete) charge of the capstone classes.
I agree here. Dr. Perumel, or someone else who is actually supportive of the Church’s position on origins should be in charge of the biology department – at the very minimum. Ideally, and I think of necessity, all staff at LSU and within our entire school system should be required to publicly subscribe to the Church’s fundamental goals and ideals before they take on the responsibility of a paid representative of the Church as a teacher or pastor.
Regardless though, I do agree with you that at the very least, and I mean very least, we all deserve open and honest transparency from our schools. We have yet to achieve this minimum at LSU. Many of our other schools are in a similar boat. It is just that the LSU boat has been the most blatant in openly attacking the Church’s position on origins for a very long time… as you clearly pointed out in your lecture.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
La Sierra and Battle Creek College
@Professor Kent:
And, you’re still not answering the question as to how you determine where to place your faith among many competing options? – if your faith does in fact trump all other evidence (as you’ve claimed in this forum: Link)? – since no evidence is actually needed to support faith? – scientific or otherwise? – Sean Pitman
I’ve already done so. – Prof. Kent
What you’ve done is given some empirical reasons for your own faith, such as your own appeal to the evidence of fulfilled prophecy (a use of abductive reasoning by the way).
What you haven’t done is explain your argument that such appeals to empirical evidence are really not needed for faith to be valid. You’ve argued that even if all scientific and other forms of evidence where completely against your faith, that you would still believe as you do regardless of any and all opposing evidence.
You’ve not explained how, if “all” evidence is against you, you can make a meaningful leap of faith and pick one among many competing options as true using “faith” alone? – since, according to you, “faith trumps science and evidence.”
How is that done in a meaningful way? How is this type of faith reasonable? – more reasonable than believing or having faith in the Qur’an, the Book of Mormon, or even garden fairies or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Again, this is a serious question which I do not see that you’ve serious discussed much less answered…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
La Sierra and Battle Creek College
@Professor Kent:
I’m all for abductive reasoning. I just don’t think it’s always science. But I’ll admit this: it can be fun to read and think and write about…
I suppose then that the mainstream evolutionary theory really isn’t “scientific” when it comes to its historical statements? – and neither is any other hypothesis about the nature of history? – such as anthropology or forensics? After all, you can’t make conclusions about the true nature of the past origin of anything without abductive reasoning – right?
Remember now, not all abductive reasoning is valid – just as not all inductive or deductive reasoning is valid. This does not, however, make all such reasoning non-scientific. You simply can’t do science without such reasoning…
Here is an interesting summary of the concept of abductive reasoning as it applies to various uses in science:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning
And, you’re still not answering the question as to how you determine where to place your faith among many competing options? – if your faith does in fact trump all other evidence (as you’ve claimed in this forum: Link)? – since no evidence is actually needed to support faith? – scientific or otherwise?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
La Sierra and Battle Creek College
Why Share Your Faith? – If you don’t have something better to offer?
Is it not arrogant of you to simply assert that your faith in the Bible is superior to all other faiths? – even in a situation where all other evidence, besides your faith, is admittedly against you? – Sean Pitman
Here is my sincere answer. I have not claimed that my faith in the Bible is superior to the faith of anyone else. Others may have done so; I think you basically have. – Prof. Kent
You believe, via faith, that the Bible is superior to other claimed sources of authority. How can you make this determination without believing that your position is in fact the better decision? – compared to that of someone else who has chosen to believe in the superiority of the Book of Mormon?
I know you don’t actually like to say so, and I know it may not sound politically correct to you, but if you didn’t actually believe that you had something better to offer to someone else, why would you even want to share your “faith”? – if you didn’t really think you had something better than they already had?
I personally believe the Bible has more credibility than the Book of Mormon, which I have browsed extensively.
Indeed. So, how is this not a statement that your faith or belief in the Bible is somehow better than faith or belief in the superior credibility of the Book of Mormon? Do you or do you not think that you have something important to share with your LDS friends which would be of some benefit to them beyond what they already have? – if they were to accept what you have to offer?
It isn’t arrogant to think that you have something worthwhile to share that someone else doesn’t have. What would be arrogant is if you kept something good to yourself and were unwilling to share it.
I think history supports the Bible much better than the Book of Mormon, and I have read extensively from Joseph Smith’s Doctrines and Covenants and I see lots of problems there. Most people do not consider history to be “science,†but if you want to make it that, go right ahead. Still, I don’t compare my faith to those who believe in the Book of Mormon.
Most scientists do in fact consider history to be based on a form of “science”. After all, the Theory of Evolution is a theory of history… as is anthropology and forensic science. Such historical sciences are based on various forms of scientific reasoning, such as abductive reasoning.
Using such reasoning, you have come to the conclusion that the Bible is in fact more credible than the Book of Mormon. In other words, you really do think that your LDS friends are mistaken in their beliefs or faith in the greater credibility of the Book of Mormon. You can say that you don’t compare your beliefs or faith with theirs, but I don’t see how you can really believe this when you say, in the same breath, that you consider the Book of Mormon to be clearly untrustworthy. Tell that to your LDS friends and see if they don’t understand such statements as a claimed superiority of your beliefs vs. theirs…
What is also interesting here is that you claim that even if you did not have the favorable historical evidence that “faith would still trump all contrary evidence” – historical or otherwise. In otherwords, it sounds like you are arguing for faith even if there were no evidence to support that faith at all (i.e., blind faith). If faith does in fact trump both science and other forms of evidence as you say, how does one determine the reasonableness of one’s own faith if faith trumps everything else?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.
Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).
Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.
